Inflatable pillow with adjustable height

ABSTRACT

A novel pillow is provided to easily adjust its height by pulling a lever on the side of the pillow to activate the air control valve configured to personalize the head support needed for that individual. Pulling the lever to a fully open position creates a larger air passage to the inflatable bladder and activates an air pump for rapid inflation of the pillow so as to increase its height. With a user head laying over the pillow, pulling a lever slightly opens up a smaller opening suitable for gradual deflation of the pillow and reducing its height caused by the pressure generated by the head. Soft comfort portion on top of the pillow enclosed in a stretchable fabric reduces surface tension and creates a softer feeling for the user thereby improving comfort and consequently sleep quality. An altimeter may be incorporated with the bladder to easily monitor sleep patterns of the user.

CROSS-REFERENCE DATA

This patent application is a continuation in part of and claims apriority benefit from a co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/600,770 filed May 21, 2017 by the same inventors and with the sametitle, which is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

This invention relates to improvements in pillows such that an improvedpillow allows the neck of a person who is lying on a bed to be in aneutral and comfortable position regardless of their size or the type ofmattress that they are sleeping on. Various embodiments of the improvedpillow allow a user to easily adjust its heights.

For a sleeping pillow to be comfortable, it must satisfy two verydifferent and frequently conflicting requirements:

-   -   i. throughout the entire sleeping time, the pillow must support        a neck and a head of a user so as to assure normal, generally        straight alignment of a spine—see FIG. 2b , and    -   ii. it also must distribute the pressure under the user's head        so as to make it comfortable for the skin on the head and face        of the user to rest on the pillow. This may be called Tactile        Comfort.

Conventional pillows are generally made in a rectangular shape in one ofonly a few sizes and are generally filled by a plush down, or polyfillmaterial. However, when a person's head is on the pillow, the softcompliant materials compress dramatically over time. Consequently, manypeople try to compensate by using multiple pillows stacked on top of oneanother which leads to too much compression of the pillow or sleep withthe arm underneath the pillow to provide the necessary support.Manufacturers are reluctant to provide a broad range of pillow sizes dueto increased production and inventory costs. These pillows frequentlyaddress the second requirement of distributing contact pressure byproviding soft external surface for the head of the user to rest on butfail to satisfy the first requirement of providing proper and consistentheight to keep the spine straight.

There are other fill material pillows known in the prior art that usebuckwheat or memory foam to provide more support—but this isaccomplished at a price of reduced tactile comfort as these pillows failto broadly distribute contact pressures leading to reduced comfort.

Generally speaking, a conventional pillow has uniform thickness. Whensuch pillow is too thin (too low) comparing to a distance correspondingto about half of the width of a user's shoulders, the neck of the userlying sideways bends downwards—see FIG. 2c . To keep a side-lying user'sneck straight, a thicker or stiffer pillow must be used to providehigher support when a head is rested on the pillow. But, when the pillowis too thick such as when using two pillows (too high), the neck of theuser bends upwards—see FIG. 2a . The bent neck may pinch various nervesin the neck, in particular those nerves that come out from the Forameninter-vertebrates. The pinches may hamper the relaxation or the rest ofthe nerves and may eventually cause pain in the upper body of a user.Nerve pinch can of course happen when there is not enough support aswell. Therefore, a pillow that allows a user to keep a straight neckduring sleep is needed.

Frequently, a user resorts to using not one but a stack of two pillows,folding the pillow, or placing their arm under the pillow to assure aproper height. In addition, the fill material of a pillow has adisadvantage of being slowly compressed throughout the sleeping timecausing a conventional pillow to gradually reduce its height overnight.Improper height of the pillow therefore causes discomfort and lack of agood night sleep.

In addition, conventional pillows do not allow for height adjustmenttailored to a specific individual's size, in particular shoulder width,mattress firmness and user preference, which could change depending on asleeping position.

Some known camping pillows are at least partially filled with foampieces. These pillows feature a turn-on and turn-off valve to controlair volume inside the pillow. A user can turn the valve on to openaccess to the inner inflatable bladder, then the user can inflate ordeflate the pillow to a desired state and then the user needs to turnthe valve off. Not only this is a long procedure, but it is difficult toadjust the pillow for comfortable sleep while the head of the user is onthe pillow because it requires two hands to operate the valve. Anotherdisadvantage of these pillows is that the pillow often does not inflateto the maximum height unless the person blows into the valve since thesize of the opening is limited making the inflation too restricted.These pillows may also not be optimal when it comes to the choice offoam and fill density since they are designed for camping.

There is a need therefore for an improved pillow which satisfies all ofthe above requirements.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to overcome theseand other drawbacks of the prior art by providing a novel pillow, whichafter initial height adjustment supports the head and neck of the userin a position aligned with the spine.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a new pillowwhich allows for an easy and rapid height adjustment, both in terms ofincreasing the height as well as decreasing the height of the pillow.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a pillowshaped to support the head the user and the neck of the user at separatesections of the pillow so as to assure proper spine alignment,individual neck and head support and maximum user comfort.

It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a pillowwith built-in quiet wake-up alarm mechanism configured to wake up theuser at a specified time but not disturb a partner.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a pillowcapable of detecting and recording user sleep patterns, user motionduring the night, how the user felt during the day, as well as a recordof what sort of activities, diet or lifestyle choices were made. Theserecordings may be done with an objective to provide recommendations asto how to improve sleep quality.

The main concept of the present invention is to provide a pillow whichcombines a soft and stretchable top comfort layer with a function ofrapid adjustment of the pillow height to fit individual userrequirements by using an inflatable portion located underneath.

The pillow 100 of the present invention is generally shown in FIGS. 1aand 1b and includes an inflatable lower portion 130 supporting from atleast underneath a top comfort portion 110. The comfort portion 110 maybe made using a soft stretchable knitted material so as to avoid surfacewrinkles and tension when in use while at the same time surrounding thehead of the user laying on the pillow. The top comfort section 110 maybe filled with any known pillow fill materials such as down, memoryfoam, polyfill, etc. The entire pillow may be enclosed in an optionallystretchable pillow cover 180. That creates a sense of superior tactilecomfort for the user.

The inflatable portion 130 of the pillow is aimed at supporting frombelow and adjusting the height of the top comfort portion 110 andincludes an inflatable stretchable bladder configured for adding moreair to the bladder or for removing some volume of air from the bladder.According to the experiments conducted by the inventors, different sizeair-in and air-out openings are required for rapid adjustment of thepillow: a greater opening size is needed for rapid inflation of thebladder and a smaller opening size is needed for slow deflation of thepillow so as to achieve the desired height. A unique air valve and pumpcontrol may be provided in the air control unit 140 of the pillow toachieve this configuration by employing a large cross-sectional areathroughout the valve assembly and precise adjustment capabilities of thevalve diaphragm. As described in greater detail below, pulling anL-shaped lever of the air valve to an intermediate “slow deflation”position opens up a smaller opening to the inflatable bladder allowingfor controlled deflation thereof and reduction in height of the pillow100. Pulling the lever to a fully open “inflation” position opens up agreater opening of the passage into the inflatable bladder and at thesame time activates an air pump for rapid inflation of the bladder. Thismay be accomplished via automatically depressing a switch at the end ofthe valve stem travel.

Pillow inflation in other embodiments may also be caused via usingcompressed foam structures placed inside the bladder. In theseembodiments, a natural relaxed position of such foam structures may beselected to urge inflation of the pillow when the head is not on it andthe air valve is open so as to increase the pillow height. When foampieces are used, the amount of height variation between compressed anduncompressed state is limited, but a geometrical structure such as acircle or a tube as shown in FIG. 14 below may allow larger variationbetween the compressed and uncompressed states thus supporting a widerrange of shoulder sizes.

A quiet wake-up vibration alarm may also be provided to silently wake upthe user and not disturb others. This may be accomplished by momentarilyturning the air pump on and off so to just cause pillow vibration whichcan only be felt by the person on the pillow and not inflate thebladder. The frequency and amplitude of the vibration can be controlledusing a pulse width modulation (PWM) technique.

An altimeter exposed to the internal volume of the inflatable bladdermay also be provided. Altimeters are used conventionally to measureatmospheric pressure to determine the elevation of a person or a droneusing a very sensitive pressure sensor. The present invention uses thissensor to determine the pressure inside the bladder, which canaccurately determine if the user's head is on or off the pillow, i.e.pillow time, as well as head motion during sleeping. This recordingthroughout the night may be used as an indicator of how well the personslept.

The pillow with the sensor and the air pump may be connected via awireless link such as BTLE to a mobile phone, tablet, personal computeror another electronic device equipped with a microprocessor in order tocollect sleep data as well as set smart silent vibration alarm thatwakes the person at the optimal time of light sleep so as to preventgrogginess.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Subject matter is particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in theconcluding portion of the specification. The foregoing and otherfeatures of the present disclosure will become more fully apparent fromthe following description and appended claims, taken in conjunction withthe accompanying drawings. Understanding that these drawings depict onlyseveral embodiments in accordance with the disclosure and are,therefore, not to be considered limiting of its scope, the disclosurewill be described with additional specificity and detail through use ofthe accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1a is a general view of the pillow of the present invention,

FIG. 1b shows a general view of a stretchable comfort portion of thepillow above the inflatable lower portion of the pillow,

FIG. 1c shows the height adjustable portion of the pillow,

FIG. 2a is a side view of a user on a pillow, which is too high,

FIG. 2b is a side view of a user on a pillow, which is optimal,

FIG. 2c is a side view of a user on a pillow, which is too low,

FIG. 3 is a general side view of the pillow in an unloaded state,

FIG. 4 is the same in a loaded state with a predefined load,

FIG. 5 is the same as in FIG. 4 but with the air valve activated fordeflation adjustment of the pillow under load,

FIG. 6 is the same showing the height of the pillow after adjustment,

FIG. 7 is a block-diagram of the pillow of the present invention,

FIG. 8 is a general cross-sectional view of the pillow of the invention,

FIG. 9 is a general side view of the inflatable bladder of the pillow,

FIG. 10 is a cross-sectional view of the inflatable bladder,

FIG. 11 is another general cross-sectional view of the inflatablebladder,

FIG. 12 is another cross-sectional view of the air-filled inflatablebladder,

FIG. 13 is a cross-sectional view of the air-filled and foam-filledinflatable bladder,

FIG. 14 is a cross-sectional view of the air-filled inflatable bladdercontaining resilient foam tubes,

FIG. 15 is a view showing an operation of opening the valve of thebladder,

FIG. 16 is a top view of the inflatable bladder of the presentinvention,

FIGS. 17 (a), (b), and (c) are respectively a top, a side, and a bottomview of the control unit of the inflatable portion of the pillow,

FIG. 17d is an isometric view of the control unit of the invention,

FIG. 18 is a general side view of the control unit showing an air valvelevers on top in the initial position,

FIG. 19 is a cross-sectional side view of the same,

FIG. 20 is a cross-sectional side view of the air valve in its initialclosed position,

FIG. 21 is a close-up cross-sectional view of the air valve in anintermediate “slow deflation” position,

FIG. 22 is the same but with the valve in an open position for rapidinflation or deflation of the bladder,

FIG. 23 is the same as FIG. 22 with the valve in a fully open positionand with the electrical switch for the motor activated,

FIG. 24a is an exemplary depiction of a screen of graphic user interfaceused to collect data on how the user feels and activities in aninteractive-messaging-like interface,

FIG. 24b shows exemplary motion data collected from the pillow thatcontains an altimeter, and

FIG. 25 is a general depiction of the process used to collect user sleepdata from the pillow and combine it with user input data in order todevelop better sleep recommendations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION

The following description sets forth various examples along withspecific details to provide a thorough understanding of claimed subjectmatter. It will be understood by those skilled in the art, however thatclaimed subject matter may be practiced without one or more of thespecific details disclosed herein. Further, in some circumstances,well-known methods, procedures, systems, components and/or circuits havenot been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuringclaimed subject matter. In the following detailed description, referenceis made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof. In thedrawings, similar symbols typically identify similar components, unlesscontext dictates otherwise. The illustrative embodiments described inthe detailed description, drawings, and claims are not meant to belimiting. Other embodiments may be utilized, and other changes may bemade, without departing from the spirit or scope of the subject matterpresented here. It will be readily understood that the aspects of thepresent disclosure, as generally described herein, and illustrated inthe figures, can be arranged, substituted, combined, and designed in awide variety of different configurations, all of which are explicitlycontemplated and make part of this disclosure.

FIG. 1 a shows a general view of the pillow 100 of the present inventionand FIG. 7 shows a general block diagram thereof. The pillow 100includes a comfort top portion 110 supported underneath by an inflatablelower portion 130. Although in this illustration the comfort portion 110is seen as covering the lower portion 130 on top only, it is alsocontemplated to have the comfort portion 110 surrounding more or eventhe entire lower inflatable portion 130 on all sides or just on a topand on the bottom. Both the lower inflatable portion 130 and the topcomfort portion 110 may be enclosed in a pillow cover 180 made fromsuitably soft and comfortable fabric, which is preferably a stretchableknitted fabric to reduce the amount of wrinkles and surface tension inthe fabric. In embodiments, the lower portion 130 may be attached to theupper comfort portion 110 and not be enclosed in a pillow cover 180. Amanual or electrically operated air control unit 140 may be provided tofacilitate adding air into the bladder or removing air therefrom inorder to adjust the pillow height.

In embodiments, the top comfort portion 110 may include an optionaldedicated cover containing the fill material. Alternatively, otherembodiments may contain a single piece of fill material or severalpieces of fill material attached together and arranged to represent thetop comfort portion 110 without a dedicated cover holding the fillmaterial together.

Conventional pillows are typically made from woven fabric that does notstretch, such as cotton. However, this fabric also creates surfacemembrane tension similar to a hammock. Consequently, the pressuredistribution underneath the person's head is not uniform. To addressthis deficiency, the pillow of the invention in at least someembodiments combines the use of a soft polyfill material inside astretchable knitted mesh that may be positioned on top of the inflatableportion 130. In this case, the inflatable portion 130 may act close to apartially filled balloon—so as to lift the top comfort portion 110 ofthe pillow and a person's head to a specifically desired position, seeFIG. 1b . The entire pillow may be wrapped in a stretchable knittedmaterial 180 to provide very soft feel through uniform pressuredistribution (i.e. improved tactile comfort).

In embodiments, a variety of fill materials can be used for the purposesof supporting the user head and distribute pressure over the largersurface of the pillow 100. Down, polyfill, polyester, polyester pellets,microbeads, beanbag fillers, wool, shredded rubber, memory foam,polyurethane foam and other traditional materials may be usedindividually or in combination to fill the volume of the upper comfortportion 110 as the present invention is not limited in this regard.

Before describing the lower inflatable portion of the pillow, it isimportant to discuss the need for height adjustment in greater detail.To achieve a good night sleep, it is important to allow musclerelaxation of all parts of the body. When it comes to an upper portionof the body, it is desirable to keep the head aligned with the generalcenter line of the spine. For a side sleeper, this translates into anecessity to select the mattress softness along with the height andsoftness of the pillow appropriately. Selecting too high of a pillowtends to cause bending of the head upwards as seen in FIG. 2a . Too softof a pillow or a shallow pillow tends to allow the head to benddownwards—see FIG. 2c . Proper alignment is seen in FIG. 2b . Utilizinga lower inflatable portion 130 of the pillow may help in adjusting thepillow height to a desired level for a variety of individual users,whereby making it universally satisfactory for a broad range ofcustomers, while at the same time reducing the cost of producing a largenumber of sizes and servicing a large inventory of products at a store.

To further improve the ease of use of the pillow with an adjustableheight, the inventors of the present invention have conducted a numberof tests to evaluate the best inflation and deflation practices for aninflatable pillow. FIG. 3 shows an intact unloaded pillow characterizedby initial undisturbed height H_(o).

The tests were performed with a 10 lb bowling ball placed in the middleof the pillow and used to represent a typical human head—see FIG. 4.Placing the ball on the pillow results in a depression of the pillowheight to a loaded height of H_(L1) when the bladder is fully inflated.

Tests to examine the impact of various size openings between theinternal inflatable bladder of the pillow and atmosphere were conductedby releasing air from the bladder. One way to accomplish such release isvia using a pinch valve (see FIG. 5)—releasing air causes the bladder todeflate at a rate corresponding to the size of the opening resulting ina lower pillow height H_(L2)—see FIG. 6.

Importantly, this test simulates the most preferred conditions of howthe pillow height needs to be adjusted—while the user's head is restingon the pillow. In that case, the pressure differential urging the airout of the bladder is defined by the weight of the head—thereforesimulating real life conditions. The rate of deflation needs to be slowenough to allow for a fine adjustment of the pillow height—deflating toofast would not allow the user to properly adjust the height of thepillow and to try different positions of the pillow while using it. Atthe same time, too small of an opening would cause excessively slowdeflation of the pillow and therefore extending the time for theadjustment procedure unnecessarily.

These experiments resulted in a determination of an optimum size of atotal opening during deflation, which is fast enough to be convenientand yet slow enough to allow for fine adjustments. In embodiments, thesize of the bladder opening suitable for convenient deflation may beabout 0.15, 0.20, 0.25, 0.30, 0.35 in² or any number inbetween.

In a separate series of tests, inventors of the present inventionevaluated the minimum size of the opening needed for rapid inflation ofthe pillow. It was determined that a suitable total opening size neededfor rapid inflation under 15 seconds is about 0.25 in².

In embodiments, the cross-sectional area of an opening to the inflatablebladder may be at or above about 0.40 in² in order to achieve pillowinflation of about 10 seconds or less. Other openings may also be usedsuch as 0.15, 0.20, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 in² or any number inbetween.

As a result of these experiments, it became apparent that a suitablerate of pillow deflation when a user head is on the pillow and pushingit down is quite different from the suitable rate of pillow inflation.In embodiments, it may be desired to have a rate of pillow deflation belower than the rate of pillow inflation. To achieve this differencebetween the rate of pillow deflation and pillow inflation, the pillow ofthe present invention features a design allowing to change thecross-sectional area of the air passage leading to the inflatablebladder.

In some embodiments, the adjustment of the air passage opening may bemade in a staged way. In other words, the opening size during deflationmay have a smaller fixed value while the opening size during inflationmay have a larger fixed value. In other embodiments, the size of theopening may be adjusted gradually over a range of values covering bothpreferred inflation and preferred deflation rates.

A general conceptional cross-sectional view of the pillow of the presentinvention is seen in FIG. 8. A pillow cover 180 is shown containing thefill material 112 located on top of the inflatable bladder 132. Thebladder 132 may be shaped as a general rectangle and sized from about9″×4″ to about 15″×22″. Using intermediate ribs 133, the bladder 132 maybe shaped to include three sections: a central section 134 of smallerheight H_(c) may be located inbetween side sections 136 and 138 ofgreater height H_(s)—see FIGS. 8 through 14. In embodiments, the heightH_(c) of the central section 134 of the unloaded bladder 132 may be fromabout 2″ to about 5″, while when in use that height may be reduced toabout 0.5″ to 3″. At the same time, the height H_(s) of the sideportions 136 and 138 may be from about 2″ to about 7″. This arrangementis designed to provide deeper cradle for the head of the user locatedover the section 134 of the pillow while at the same time supporting theneck of the user located over a side section 136 or 138 of the bladder132.

A typical PVC bladder used in conventional inflatable pillows of theprior art is inflated such that it's membrane tension provides a firmand well defined inflated shape of the bladder. Consequently, itprovides the desired shape of the inflatable item such as a mattress,pillow or an animation figure. While using such materials to make abladder of the present pillow is possible, in at least some embodimentsthe present invention may use a bladder made from a cloth laminated withand sealed by a thin polyurethane or another polymer layer to providesoft elastic feel thereto. This approach would not have a final definedinflated shape and it is not used therefor to create a shape of apillow, but to function as a lifting device that elevates a soft comfortlayer on top of the inflatable bladder 132.

In embodiments, the bladder 132 may be filled with only air as seen inFIG. 11. In other embodiments, the bladder 132 may be at least partiallyfilled with a fill material—see FIG. 13. Having at least some foaminside the inflatable bladder 132 may be advantageous for a number ofreasons:

-   -   i. it provides for initial inflation of the bladder 132 due to        natural foam expansion,    -   ii. it provides for some resiliency of the bladder even without        support from air pressure,    -   iii. it allows for a better control of the shape of the        inflatable bladder 132, and    -   iv. it dampens oscillations and bouncing around when the user        moved his head.        For all these reasons, this design may be advantageous for use        in manually-inflatable hollow pillows. The fill material inside        the bladder 132 may be the same or different from the fill        material of the upper comfort portion 110. In embodiments, the        fill material of the bladder 132 may be selected to be more        elastic and less soft than the fill material of the upper        comfort portion 110 so as to provide better support for the        user, while the upper comfort layer 110 can provide for a        greater pressure distribution to increase tactile comfort.

The present invention contemplates passive as well as assisted inflationof the bladder 132. In case of a passive inflation, a simple blow-intube may be provided at the end of the bladder opening. Such tube may bedesigned to be tucked away under the bladder once pillow adjustment iscomplete. Another way to cause passive inflation is to allow theinflatable bladder to expand based of expansion of the internal foam,which may have been previously compressed for storage purposes.

The stiffness of reticulated foam is much greater than that of apolyfill material so such foam is conventionally shredded or cut intosmall pieces to fill inside a pillow that is typically used for campingsince it can be compressed to a small size for travel. One alternativeway to inflate the bladder is to use a circular foam tubes 139 (see FIG.14) inside at least one, some or inside every section of the bladder132. The foam tube 139 can be compressed much more than small pieces offoam as seen in FIG. 13. This approach would eliminate the need for amotor to inflate the pillow. The shape of the tube may be selected tomatch the size of each section of the inflatable bladder so thatcompressed foam pieces or the foam tube would urge the inflatablebladder to expand to its inflated shape when the foam is notconstrained.

A variety of mechanisms may be deployed to adjust the size of the airpassage opening into the bladder, such as valves, manifolds, etc. To beconvenient, such mechanism must be small, easily reachable and simple tooperate by feel and without looking, even in a dark room. In this case,a simple and quick adjustment to the pillow height may be made by a userwhile resting a head on the pillow.

In embodiments, inflation of the bladder 132 may be conducted by anelectrically driven air pump using an air flow control unit 140. In thiscase, the air control unit 140 may be incorporated into the inflatablebladder 132 (see FIG. 16) and may include all the elements needed forair handling procedure, including microprocessor, a battery, a motor, anair pump, and one or more valves to control the flow of air in and outof the bladder 132. The microprocessor and the control logic may belocated either inside the pillow or may be external to the pillow andcommunicating with the pillow elements such as a pump, a valve andoptional sensors by using a wired or wireless communication link. Inembodiments, a small electronic device such as a cell phone, a tablet ora personal computer may be employed to provide control function andpresent the user with a graphic user interface to operate the pillow andset desired parameters thereof. Reference to a “control unit”contemplates all of these arrangements, both inside and outside thepillow.

The air control assembly 140 may be built into the bladder 132 in such away that only a control lever may protrude outwards therefrom—see FIG.15. A closer view of the air control unit 140 is seen in FIGS. 17 (a)through (d). To facilitate attachment of the air control assembly 140 tothe bladder 132, a polymer insert layer 141 may be incorporated with theair control unit 140 during assembly. In this case, the bladder 132 maybe welded, glued or otherwise attached to the polymer layer 141 tosealingly assemble the air control unit 140 inside the inflatablebladder 132. The polymer material of the insert 141 may be selected tobe the same or of similar content as the material used for making aninflatable bladder 132 so as to facilitate the welding or another methodof attachment between the air control unit 140 and the inflatablebladder 132.

The details of the air control assembly 140 are shown in FIGS. 17 to 19.The air control unit 140 generally includes an electrically-poweredmotor 174 rotating an impeller of the air pump 170. The motor 174 may bepowered by a battery or another source of electrical power. The air pump170 may be selected to provide enough air flow into the bladder 132 forrapid inflation.

The valve portion of the air control unit 140 may be made using amovable spring-loaded L-shaped lever 155 positioned opposite a hard stop153. The shape of the protruding portions of the lever 155 and the hardstop 153 may be made to allow the user to squeeze the lever 155 bypressing the end thereof towards the stop 153 when placing both thelever 155 and the stop 153 between two fingers of the same hand—see FIG.21. The soft stretchable cover 180 may be configured such that bothlever 155 and hard stop 153 may protrude from the pillow 100 while underthe cover 180 and operation of the air valve may be accomplished bypushing the lever 155 through the stretchable material of the cover 180.

When the lever 155 is moved towards the hard stop 153, it causes aspring-loaded valve stem 151 of the air valve to move downwards from itsnormally-closed initial position to open air passage between the valveplate 154 and the valve seat or membrane 152—see FIGS. 20, 21, 22, and23. The shape of the air passage formed when the stem 151 is moveddownwards depends on the position of the stem 151: initial movement ofthe stem 151 from a closed position to an intermediate “slow deflation”position causes only a small air passage opening to be formed to allowslow deflation of the bladder. The size of that opening may be selectedto match the experiments described above—about 0.15, 0.20, 0.25, 0.30,0.35 in² or any number inbetween. This position is designed for slowdeflation of the bladder and reduction of the pillow height caused bythe weight of the user's head resting on the pillow.

As the stem 151 is urged by the lever 155 to move further down to a fullopen “inflation” position, the air passage opening may be increased toallow rapid inflation of the bladder—see FIG. 22. As described above,the full opening of the valve may open a size of the air passage to beabout 0.15, 0.20, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 in² or any number inbetween—that wouldallow inflating of the bladder 132 in under 15 sec when a suitable airpump is used. In embodiments, the shape of the air passage may beselected to allow continuously increasing air passage to be formed asthe stem 151 is moved from a closed position to an open position—in thatcase the speed of bladder deflation may be progressively increased byfurther squeezing the lever 155 towards the hard stop 153.

In other embodiments, the shape of the air passage may be selected to beconsistently small once the stem 151 is moved from a closed position tothe open position and increase in size dramatically once the openposition is reached. In this case, the user may not be concerned withfine adjustment of the bladder deflation—it will be the same at mostpositions of the lever 155 except its final position. This configurationmay be preferred for the purposes of a simple two-stage adjustment.

The control unit 140 may be further designed to have the lower end ofthe stem 151 to activate the air pump switch 159 when it reaches the endof its travel—see FIG. 23. This would cause the pump to be automaticallyenergized when the valve is in the open “inflation” position causing thebladder to be inflated. As the desired extent of inflation is achieved,the user may release the lever 155 causing inflation to stop and thevalve to close. The control unit with a microprocessor may be used tomodulate when the pump turns off. In one example, the switch 159 maydirectly connect the air pump to the source of power, in which caseoperating the valve away from the open “inflate position” wouldimmediately cause the air pump to stop.

In other embodiments, the switch 159 may be connected to a controller inwhich case the controller may be programmed to execute a slight delay toswitch the pump off, for example about 0.5 sec. In this case, when thelever is released, the pump is still operating to inflate the pillowduring this delay so as to minimize inadvertent deflation while thevalve is in the process of being closed.

Additional features may be provided by the novel pillow of the presentinvention. One such feature is a silent wake-up alarm. Traditionalvibration alarms provided in various pillows of the prior art are notentirely silent. They utilize a dedicated motor, which is used to rotatea cam to create vibration, and in turn wake up a user at a resonancefrequency which is typically in the range of audio frequencies. Whileeffective, such systems are not silent, and may cause a partner of theuser who sleeps nearby to wake up as well.

The present invention addresses this problem by providing a silentvibration alarm, which does not require any additional components otherthan what is already present in the pillow of the invention. The silentalarm is achieved by momentary use of the motor of the air pump as anoptional vibration actuator. The control unit may be programmed toactivate the silent alarm at the desired time of the day by pulsing(activating) the motor for short periods of time such as about 1-10 msabout every 2 sec or so. This use of the motor doesn't cause the motorto turn or pump to infuse any appreciable amount of air into thebladder—but creates a small vibration that only the person sleeping onthe pillow can hear and feel. This eliminates the need for a separatevibration motor needed to create a silent alarm.

Another novel feature of the invention is incorporation of an altimeterto be exposed to the internal volume of the bladder 132. Altimeters aregenerally designed to measure atmospheric pressure and to determine thealtitude of the user for applications such as mountain climbers,airplanes and drones. Altimeter is generally made using an absolutepressure sensor and detecting a reduction in pressure below anatmospheric pressure. They are not known to be used in the range ofpressures higher than atmospheric pressure as this would indicatelocation of the user below sea level. Mass production of altimeters foruse in cell phones and other common electronic devices makes themreadily available and inexpensive. The present invention uses thealtimeter located inside the bladder 132 as a pressure sensor to measurethe sleep activity of the user. As the head of the user is rested on apillow, the pressure inside the pillow increases above a previous steadybaseline air pressure level. Detecting and recording of the bladderpressure by an altimeter both before and during sleep time may be usefulin detecting the time when the user went to sleep, the time when theuser woke up, how many times the user got up in the middle of the nightas well as the relative motion of the user during the sleep as suchmotion would cause pressure fluctuations and variations inside thebladder of the pillow—and can be recorded using the altimeter or anotherpressure sensor.

Information from the altimeter may be used to determine all themovements of the user very accurately in comparison to using othersensors such as conventional accelerometers. This novel approach usesthe pressure region of the altimeter which is typically not used, i.e.when the pressure increases above ambient baseline level indicatingcompression of the bladder presumably by a head of the user. Analtimeter provides absolute pressure so it does not have to be vented tooutside the bladder for simpler construction. Altimeters are also madein small sized making incorporation into the control unit 140 easier toaccomplish.

The pillow of the present invention incorporating an altimeter and asilent alarm further allows to accomplish smart wake alarm—inembodiments, the controller 140 may be programmed to wake the user atthe ideal light sleep state within a 30-minute window before theselected alarm time. Light sleep state may be detected when increasinghead movement is identified. Awakening in a light sleep state reducesthe feeling of grogginess and gives the person a more refreshed feeling.

However, if the person has been sleep-deprived or they simply need moresleep, the smart alarm doesn't provide as much benefit since that personneeds as much sleep as possible. In that situation the user may hit thesnooze button to activate a snooze request—to sleep a bit more.Generally, the duration of the snooze on a conventional alarm clock hasbeen fixed based on historical limitations of mechanical watches. Thepresent invention may further provide a smart snooze function using thesensor in the pillow that can accurately monitor user motion using analtimeter-provided data—the snooze duration can be adjusted to fit theperson's needs, for example it would cause the activation of the silentalarm again when the person starts moving his head again above apredetermined threshold indicating being in a light sleep pattern—allwithin a predetermined period of snooze time interval set by the user.

How a person slept, other subjectively perceived quality of sleep data,as well as objectively recorded data such as duration of sleep and headmotion through the night may be tracked accurately with the sleeptracking capabilities of the pillow of the present invention asdescribed above. Incorporating a wired or wireless transmissioncapability into the pillow of the invention allows to establish a linkwith a smart mobile phone app or a computer program to record a varietyof sleep parameters and combine them with the user input. Over time,such accumulated data may be used to track best sleep patterns anddetermine the best sleep practices for each individual user. The phoneapp may be used to combine the sleep data with information on how theuser feels in the morning or throughout the day for example and what didthe user do to help develop better insights on how to get better sleep.This may be accomplished with a simple graphic user interface (see FIG.25) that lets the user select key activities and emotions. Correlationalgorithms may be used to monitor trends in sleep data as well aslifestyle inputs to propose actionable suggestions on how to improve thequality of sleep.

It is contemplated that any embodiment discussed in this specificationcan be implemented with respect to any method of the invention, and viceversa. It will be also understood that particular embodiments describedherein are shown by way of illustration and not as limitations of theinvention. The principal features of this invention can be employed invarious embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention.Those skilled in the art will recognize, or be able to ascertain usingno more than routine experimentation, numerous equivalents to thespecific procedures described herein. Such equivalents are considered tobe within the scope of this invention and are covered by the claims.

All publications and patent applications mentioned in the specificationare indicative of the level of skill of those skilled in the art towhich this invention pertains. All publications and patent applicationsare herein incorporated by reference to the same extent as if eachindividual publication or patent application was specifically andindividually indicated to be incorporated by reference.

The use of the word “a” or “an” when used in conjunction with the term“comprising” in the claims and/or the specification may mean “one,” butit is also consistent with the meaning of “one or more,” “at least one,”and “one or more than one.” The use of the term “or” in the claims isused to mean “and/or” unless explicitly indicated to refer toalternatives only or the alternatives are mutually exclusive, althoughthe disclosure supports a definition that refers to only alternativesand “and/or.” Throughout this application, the term “about” is used toindicate that a value includes the inherent variation of error for thedevice, the method being employed to determine the value, or thevariation that exists among the study subjects.

As used in this specification and claim(s), the words “comprising” (andany form of comprising, such as “comprise” and “comprises”), “having”(and any form of having, such as “have” and “has”), “including” (and anyform of including, such as “includes” and “include”) or “containing”(and any form of containing, such as “contains” and “contain”) areinclusive or open-ended and do not exclude additional, unrecitedelements or method steps. In embodiments of any of the compositions andmethods provided herein, “comprising” may be replaced with “consistingessentially of” or “consisting of”. As used herein, the phrase“consisting essentially of” requires the specified integer(s) or stepsas well as those that do not materially affect the character or functionof the claimed invention. As used herein, the term “consisting” is usedto indicate the presence of the recited integer (e.g., a feature, anelement, a characteristic, a property, a method/process step or alimitation) or group of integers (e.g., feature(s), element(s),characteristic(s), propertie(s), method/process steps or limitation(s))only.

The term “or combinations thereof” as used herein refers to allpermutations and combinations of the listed items preceding the term.For example, “A, B, C, or combinations thereof” is intended to includeat least one of: A, B, C, Aft AC, BC, or ABC, and if order is importantin a particular context, also BA, CA, CB, CBA, BCA, ACB, BAC, or CAB.Continuing with this example, expressly included are combinations thatcontain repeats of one or more item or term, such as BB, AAA, Aft BBC,AAABCCCC, CBBAAA, CABABB, and so forth. The skilled artisan willunderstand that typically there is no limit on the number of items orterms in any combination, unless otherwise apparent from the context.

As used herein, words of approximation such as, without limitation,“about”, “substantial” or “substantially” refers to a condition thatwhen so modified is understood to not necessarily be absolute or perfectbut would be considered close enough to those of ordinary skill in theart to warrant designating the condition as being present. The extent towhich the description may vary will depend on how great a change can beinstituted and still have one of ordinary skilled in the art recognizethe modified feature as still having the required characteristics andcapabilities of the unmodified feature. In general, but subject to thepreceding discussion, a numerical value herein that is modified by aword of approximation such as “about” may vary from the stated value byat least ±1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 15, 20 or 25%.

All of the devices and/or methods disclosed and claimed herein can bemade and executed without undue experimentation in light of the presentdisclosure. While the devices and methods of this invention have beendescribed in terms of preferred embodiments, it will be apparent tothose of skill in the art that variations may be applied to the devicesand/or methods and in the steps or in the sequence of steps of themethod described herein without departing from the concept, spirit andscope of the invention. All such similar substitutes and modificationsapparent to those skilled in the art are deemed to be within the spirit,scope and concept of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. An inflatable pillow with adjustable heightcomprising: a top comfort portion enclosed in a stretchable material, aninflatable portion located under said comfort portion and configured toraise said top comfort portion when inflated, said inflatable portioncomprising an inflatable bladder with an air passage leading thereto andan air control unit, said air control unit in turn comprising an airinflation element and an air valve, said air valve is configured tooperate in one of the following three positions: a closed position inwhich said inflatable bladder is isolated and said air passage isclosed, an intermediate “slow deflation” position in which said airpassage is partially open, said “slow deflation” position is configuredfor reducing a height of said inflatable pillow by releasing air fromsaid inflatable bladder, and an open “inflation” position in which saidair inflation element is operated to infuse air into said inflatablebladder through said air passage, said air passage is fully open to anextent greater than in said “slow deflation” position, wherebyadjustment of height of said pillow is conducted by operating said valvebetween said closed position, said intermediate “slow deflation”position and said open “inflation” position.
 2. The inflatable pillow asin claim 1 wherein said air valve comprises a spring-loaded L-shapedlever positioned across from and in close vicinity to a hard stop so assqueezing both said L-shaped lever and said hard stop between twofingers causing depression or a spring-loaded stem of said valve andpartial or full opening of said air passage.
 3. The inflatable pillow asin claim 2, wherein said stretchable material is extended to cover bothsaid top comfort portion and said inflatable portion of said inflatablepillow including said air valve, said L-shaped lever and said hard stopprotruding under said stretchable material whereby allowing operatingsaid air valve through said stretchable material.
 4. The inflatablepillow as in claim 1 further comprising said inflatable bladder filledat least partially with compressible foam pieces, said foam piecesconfigured for urging said inflatable bladder to expand to an inflatedshape when not constrained.
 5. The inflatable pillow as in claim 1,wherein said inflatable bladder contains one or more compressible foamtubes, said one or more foam tubes configured to urge said inflatablebladder to expand into an expanded shape when said one or more foamtubes are not constrained.
 6. The inflatable pillow as in claim 1,wherein said inflatable bladder comprising a central section having aheight lower than a height of side sections thereof.
 7. The inflatablepillow as in claim 1, wherein said pillow further comprising analtimeter exposed to the air pressure inside said inflatable bladder,and a controller configured to detect and record air pressure insidesaid inflatable bladder using said altimeter, said controller is furtherconfigured to operate said altimeter in a pressure range equal or aboveambient air pressure.
 8. The inflatable pillow as in claim 7, whereinsaid controller is further configured to detect time intervals when saidpillow is in use corresponding to time intervals when said air pressureis above an air pressure baseline level, said air pressure increasecaused by compression of said pillow by a head of a user.
 9. Theinflatable pillow as in claim 7, wherein said controller is furtherconfigured to detect head motion over said pillow by detecting airpressure variations above said air pressure baseline level.
 10. Theinflatable pillow as in claim 1, wherein said air inflation element isan electrically-powered air pump.
 11. The inflatable pillow as in claim10, wherein said control unit is configured to de-activate saidelectrically-powered air pump after a predetermined delay followingswitching said air valve away from said open “inflate” position.
 12. Theinflatable pillow as in claim 1, wherein said air inflation element iscompressed foam constrained within said inflatable bladder upondeflation thereof.
 13. The inflatable pillow as in claim 12, whereinsaid air inflation element is a compressed foam tube.
 14. The inflatablepillow as in claim 10 further equipped with a silent alarm feature, saidsilent alarm caused by intermittent activation at user selected times ofsaid air pump for periods of time sufficient to cause vibration internalto said inflatable pillow but insufficient to cause inflation of saidinflatable bladder.
 15. The inflatable pillow as in claim 10, whereinsaid control unit is further configured after activation of a snoozerequest to adjust snooze duration using an altimeter-based motiondetection of the head on said inflatable pillow, said silent alarm isactivated once said motion is detected above a predetermined thresholdwithin a snooze time interval.
 16. The inflatable pillow as in claim 14,wherein said air pump is activated for a period of time under 10milliseconds for the purposes of delivering said silent alarm.
 17. Theinflatable pillow as in claim 1 further comprising a stretchable pillowcover surrounding both said top comfort portion and said inflatableportion of said inflatable pillow.
 18. The inflatable pillow as in claim7 further equipped with a wireless transmission link to a cellularphone, tablet or a personal computer running a mobile applicationconfigured to receive sleep data accumulated using said altimeter data.19. The inflatable pillow as in claim 18, wherein said mobileapplication is further configured to receive user input on subjectivelyperceived quality of sleep as well as environmental, activity anddietary inputs, so as to facilitate correlation analysis and provideactionable recommendations as to improvements in sleep quality.